About 18 months ago I was diagnosed with osteo-arthritis in both my knees, though of course I had been experiencing some pain before that. The condition has become increasingly irritating not just because of the knee pain, but because the pain leads to a second condition called a Bakers Cyst (also known as water on the knee) that adds new pains in the back of both my upper and lower legs.

For years my exercise of choice has been running. I have run in many of the world's cities (except for Bangkok -- only a crazy person would run the streets there) and find the experience synergistic -- the new sights keeps me from being bored in my runs and the running helps me see details of a city I might have missed. I am not really competitive, but I have run four or five half-marathons and a number of shorter races.

It has become clear I have to give this all up. So I decided to go out with a bang, and run my first and last marathon, which will be January 7 at Disneyworld (I love the Disney marathons because the vibe is pretty chill, there are lots of fun things to look at as you run through the parks and past characters and bands, and the medals are really nice). I usually run in costume for the Disney races but I think not for this race -- I will be shedding every pound; I am considering cutting off the ends of my shoelaces to save weight ;-)

The big event comes in the next few weeks when my doctor is going to shoot me up with cortisone in each knee and drain my Bakers cysts. From past experience, this will help a ton. Even without the cortisone I have done a couple of 16-18 mile runs in addition to my daily running of 6-ish miles so I am fairly sure I will make it.

The first question I always get is what time am I shooting for. Timing for my distance race performances is generally by google calendar. I did my last half in around 2:30 so extrapolating that I will likely be far behind Oprah's time of 4:29, but I think my ego can survive.

Once the race is over, I have already found my new preferred form of excercise. The eliptical machine feels good with my knees but I hate excercising indoors. Biking can be fun but my *ss always falls asleep. So I bought one of these bad boys and am already having a lot of fun with it. Super expensive, but hopefully prices will come down if they get popular.